


The Call

by cells55



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:11:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2419721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cells55/pseuds/cells55
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny gets a call from California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call

He gets the call at 2.15pm. At 2.20, he puts his coffee down without thinking, and watches in fascination as a bright spark of red blooms on his palm, tiny pieces of black ceramic spattered across his desk.

 

He doesn't care. About any of it. Doesn't feel the sharp pain he knows should be there as he mops up the strange mixture of blood and coffee that now stains two patient files. Great. He's going to have to rewrite those now.

 

A heart attack. Figures. There was a time when Danny didn't think the man even _had_ a heart, or a conscience, or morals. Some of that shifted when he sat there in the man's kitchen, trying to digest potato chip pie. But there had been years of a sticky dark bitterness that ate away at his insides, and that wasn't going to be an easy fix.

 

When someone shrieks in his doorway, he's almost forgotten that there's anything shock-worthy to see. But the gash that still insists on bleeding sits on his hand and refuses to be ignored. Betsy's sounded the alarm before he's even had a chance to answer her desperate query of "are you okay?"

 

Clearly not, he wants to say. I am far from okay. But he has always done a good job of keeping that sort of thing down, for the sake of his overworked mom or his fragile kid brother or his acidic wife. "I'm fine" becomes a standard reply, words losing all meaning.

 

Grief does what it's going to do, no matter what you may feel or want or need. Grief is going to flatten you down; it's going to blow you back up, then creep around you with a pin to let the air out at a moment's notice. One minute you're laughing and smiling and functioning like a normal human being, and the next, everything is dark and broken and your vision blurs. He knows all this is inevitable. It's coming and he just has to sit there and let it swallow him whole.

 

Time moves too quickly for him to really take in, and so he's been in and out of the emergency room, a neatly-stitched scar like a pathway across his palm, before he even stops to think. Mindy clutches his arm, her knuckles pale and muscles tense, as if she's holding him up with all her strength. But that's ridiculous, because that would imply he's falling apart. Which he's not.

 

He doesn't say a word for the whole journey back to his place, too busy studying the laces on his shoes or the stains on the sidewalk. He thinks maybe she says a few things, but the words are fuzzy and don't quite sink in. He just nods.

 

He's halfway to the bedroom when some words finally fight through the cloud around him. "Please...I want to help, Danny."

 

He stops, and looks round at her. She looks pale and small and sad, wringing her hands, never quite able to hold herself still for very long. He wants her to help, too. But there isn't help, not for this. "It's okay. I'm okay."

 

"You're not," she insists, her voice wavering. "And, and it's okay that you're not, but you have to admit that this hurts - "

 

"It's fine," he interrupts. His voice is like lead. "It's not like he was ever really a father figure, you know? It's fine." He swallows, his throat dry. "I feel for little Danny, of course. She's the one who'll need help. Not me."

 

"You're allowed to be angry and sad at the same time, you know," she points out, trying to step closer. He moves back a little without thinking. "You're allowed to _feel_ things about this, Danny."

 

"You don't have to give me permission to _feel_ , Min," he replies scathingly. "I don't need it and I didn't ask for it."

 

Her mouth closes, the wind clearly taken out of her sails. Something, somewhere inside of him, feels bad, wants to reach out to her, to hold her close and smell her hair and take some small comfort to try and salve these wounds. But it's too late for that; his words cut her, and now she's bleeding in front of him, and there's nothing he can do.

 

"Okay," she murmurs, and looks down, adjusting her purse. "Look, I can leave if you want me to. If you...want some space."

 

He doesn't. He's never wanted space, not in his life, not from anyone, but they kept giving it to him - his wife, his girlfriends. His father. Thousands of miles of space that he never asked for.

 

"Yeah," he says quietly, and hates himself with more fire than he ever directed at his dad. "Thanks."

 

She mumbles a goodbye, too afraid to close the gap between them to give him a kiss, and shuffles out the door. As it closes behind her, his hand starts to throb. Maybe he hasn't completely wrecked this. Maybe it's salvageable. Maybe she'll come back, because she has to know that he says things he doesn't mean, that he pushes when he wants to pull. That it's hard to be honest when it feels like there's someone sitting on his chest.

 

He sits down, and stares at the door.

 

He stares at the door all night. It doesn't open.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote half of this before a family bereavement, and the other half in the wake of it, so it's kind of...messy.


End file.
